Evan Nison ’09

Evan Nison ’09 is the youngest ever Executive Director of NORML New Jersey, and has been a member on Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s Board of Directors for several years. He also runs a cannabis specific PR firm, NisonCo and is a co-founder of Whoopi & Maya.. In New York he is the Co-Founder of the NY Cannabis Alliance, which has helped craft numerous pieces of cannabis related legislation in New York. In 2010 he moved to California to run the college outreach effort for Prop 19 in California, which spanned over 40 schools. He was President of Ithaca Students for Sensible Drug Policy for 4 years, which was rated the #1 college drug law reform chapter in the country in 2011, and under his leadership passed one of the first college policies in the country that equalized penalties for cannabis and alcohol on campus. Evan was instrumental in the passage of the New York 911 Good Samaritan Law and served as Drug Policy Advisor to Mayor Svante Myrick of Ithaca, NY, one of the youngest mayors in the country, where he helped spearhead an effort to pass a US Conference of Mayors resolution supporting the legalization of marijuana. Evan has been mentioned in news sources such as the NY Times, Politico, USA Today, NBC New York, Bloomberg TV, Forbes, and has been profiled in the Ithaca Times, Home News Tribune, and the Sun Times. He also received the 2011 NORML Student Activism Award and High Times Freedom Fighter Award for his advocacy.